1 in 15 premature babies born around the world doesn’t make it. Here’s the beautiful story of one who does.
Walker Pruett was so small and fragile when he was born prematurely on April 25, 2014.
He weighed a tiny 538 grams. He was delivered via emergency caesarean at just 26 weeks and was even too small for his mum to hold him before he was placed in special care.
Over the next 100 days, Walker recovered and grew and became a beautiful, healthy little boy.
Walker's parents Erica and Jared Pruett kept a vigil over their tiny son and it was shortly after his birth that they were approached by Deneen Bryan, founder of charity group Capturing Hopes Photography. Deneen wanted Walker to feature in her charity's project called 100 Days, which aimed to document the first 100 days of a premature baby's life in photographs.
Deneen is a mother of six and became involved in the project after losing a child, six-month-old Christina. A professional photographer approached her at that time and Deneen agreed, not thinking much of it.
After losing her daughter, those photos became precious and she became determined to offer the same gift to other families. That's when she launched Capturing Hope. She told The Blaze:
After she passed away, we got the photos in the mail. That's when I really realised how important those photos were. That was our only professional photo that we had of our family at the time.
Those photographs have now been turned into a special time-lapse video and released on YouTube.
It's so incredible to watch Walker from being so small to a robust three-month-old who is thriving at home.
Technically he only featured in the series for 80 days because he made such an amazing recovery that he was allowed home after that.
Watch the full video here.
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